HOW TO SURVIVE c a s e s t u d y The ambulance arrived at the park gate 20 min- BREATHLESS airWay aTTack in THe Wilderness
In the summer of 1998, Rapid publisher Scott MacGregor was part of a team leading a group of youth at risk teenagers down the Petawawa River in Algonquin Park. Arriving at a campsite below the Natch Rapids after a long day of paddling, one of the boys complained of breathing prob- lems—asthma or perhaps an allergic reaction. Long before satellite phones were commonplace, the only way out was an all-night class III whitewa- ter evacuation downriver.
our vehicles were parked. Only a couple hours of daylight remained as we weighed our options and chose our evacuation team. I’d have bet $20 he was faking. With no medical
T
history (we had his doctor’s notes), and only one day to go after three days on the river, it struck us all as funny that he was now having trouble breathing. The decision process, however, was simple. Trying to manage his airway was too much of a gamble. One of our staff had been a logger in the park
and was pretty sure that a hydro line corridor crossed the main park road and the river before the next major rapid. We had a hunch that there’d be some sort of access road and if we left imme- diately we’d be able get the boy to where the cor- ridor met the river before dark. We set off in three canoes—six staff and the vic-
tim. Fortunately, this organization operated with a one-to-one client to staff ratio, leaving six staff at camp to manage the rest of the group. After the two-kilometre-long, class III Schooner
Rapids we reached the hydro corridor at dusk. At this point the boy’s breathing had returned to nor- mal. In fact as soon as we got him in the canoe and moving his symptoms cleared. Faker! Didn’t he know how much he was putting us at risk? We left him with two staff trained in wilderness
first aid (one an asthmatic himself) and a tent, sleeping bags, food and someone’s spare puffer to await rescue. Our party of four then set off in moonless darkness to navigate Five Mile Rapids and three windy lakes. After six exhausting, adrenaline-filled hours, we
arrived at the parking lot at 1:30 in the morning. Two of us drove to the park office to activate the emergency services. The other two staff jumped in the 4x4 pickup to see if they could crawl down the corridor to rendezvous at the river. If they were not out to the main road in three hours, the plan was to call a helicopter.
32 Rapid summer/fall 2010
ypically it is a full day’s paddle from the Natch Rapids to the Lake McManus takeout where
During his wait in the bush, the boy’s breath-
ing trouble continued. At one point he’d stopped breathing completely. The attending staff held him in their arms breathing with him to stop him from panicking. They said it was the longest eight hours of their lives.
what if…
mark. Slipping off-line and into the don’t-go- there left side of the Petawawa River’s Suicide Rapid, Schroeder hit a retentive pour-over and flipped. “I knew the boat wasn’t going to flush, so I pulled my sprayskirt,” says Schroe- der. Pinched in a narrow trough, he swam hard across the hole, grabbing for any water moving downriver; curled into a ball to try to reach the downstream current along the river bottom; and kicked off the rock whenever his body came into contact with something solid. After an estimated two minutes—an eternity in the disorienting, hypoxic realm of a powerful recirculation—Schroeder had exhausted every textbook hole-escape technique. “I finally just went limp,” he remembers, “then I flushed.”
deal WiTH iT: Swiftwater Rescue profes- sionals like Rescue Canada’s Matt Cuccaro teach two proven self-rescue strategies for hole-escapes: swim for the side or swim for the bottom. Schroeder’s full-body surrender, which he admits was more the result of beginning to lose consciousness than a considered tactic, is
YOU’RE STUCK IN A HYDRAULIC? R
uss Schroeder realized this wasn’t your typical spin cycle after the one-minute
a last resort. “Stay active— it’s all about reach- ing for that water that’s moving downstream,” says Cuccaro. If you can’t get to a side, swim hard into the current and curl into a ball. With any luck, you’ll be driven deep into the flushing current below the recirculation. Paddling in a group increases safety and
rescue options. During his swim, Schroeder was unable to grab his sole paddling partner’s throw bag. Tag line and live bait rescues were potential lifesavers not possible with just one rescuer.
avoid iT: Thorough scouting is the best way to steer clear of a sticky situation. Be es- pecially wary of frowning holes—those with edges that curve upstream, feeding back into the centre—and quiet, or relatively unaerated, hydraulics. The latter recirculate well below the surface so are particularly hazardous for swimmers. The critical factor is the distance between the pour-over slot and the boil line, which delineates where current begins moving downstream. In general, walk around anything with a boil line over half a boat length. —VM
utes after my call. We convoyed to the hydro cor- ridor and waited. After two hours of pacing on a dark gravel road, with the attendants anxious to ditch and move on to other calls, headlights re- flected off the top of the furthest hydro tower. They were on their way out. —Scott MacGregor
» analysis: The staff believed the boy was faking but felt it was clearly a better-
safe-than-sorry situation. Fortunately for the boy, the staff team was large enough and competent enough to move at night and still manage the rest of the group. He may very well have not made it to morning. The boy arrived at the local hospital nine hours after leaving the campsite. He stayed there for three days before being transported home.
PHOTO: RYAN CREARY
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